


The Fading of Me

by CursingBunny



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU only in the way that Soulmates exist, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 06:12:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2338067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CursingBunny/pseuds/CursingBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve first sees the darkening of his skin on his inner arm, below the joint of his elbow, his breathing quickens, his chest tightens and coughs gather in his lungs, pushing out of his throat, unrelenting.</p><p>It’s also the first time he learns the words ‘asthma’ and ‘frail’ and ‘prone to illness’.</p><p>So, it’s natural that for the first few years of the ink slowly growing within him, he blames it for most of his problems (even though, logically, he knew it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with his health).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fading of Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is just an idea that I had, and it was one of the few stories I had minimal resistance in writing, so I hope ya'll will enjoy it! 
> 
> Please do leave a review if you can!
> 
> Psst: I am on [tumblr! ](http://whatthebuckbucky.tumblr.com/)

When Steve first sees the darkening of his skin on his inner arm, below the joint of his elbow, his breathing quickens, his chest tightens and coughs gather in his lungs, pushing out of his throat, unrelenting.

It’s also the first time he learns the words ‘asthma’ and ‘frail’ and ‘prone to illness’.

So, it’s natural that for the first few years of the ink slowly growing within him, he blames it for most of his problems (even though, logically, he knew it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with his health).

But he does listen to his mother, he really does, when she tells him how important it is, and how even though the doctors and nurses watch the design grow on his arm through the years of check-ups, it’s still an intensely private mark that he should show _no one._ Until he meets her, of course. The girl he’s supposed to spend the rest of his life with.

So every time a girl speaks to him (which is not a regular occurrence, surprise, surprise), he curls up at home, hours later, squinting at the spotty black lines on his arm, trying to make out a word, a letter, to see if _she_ might have been the one.

It never comes to anything, of course, considering the phrase on his arm hasn't fully formed - won't - until he’s older. He tries not to think too much about the  _other_ reason ( _but how can he? When girls only spare him a disdainful glance - or worse - a pitying smile)._

When he’s twelve, and he thinks he can make out a word, written small and neat on his skin, he meets Bucky.

‘Meet’ might not be the right word to describe it.

He was saved by Bucky would be a more accurate statement. It doesn’t mean Steve will ever be ready to admit that. He’d never hear the end of it.

Still, he can’t deny the involuntary gratefulness he feels when he hears a muffled thud, paired with a grunt of one of the older boys. While he’s spitting blood onto the ground, he hears a new voice, a cocky, winded voice mouthing off.

“Oh yeah, ain’t so tough, huh? What? Need three o’ ya to beat on one kid? What kind of pansies-“

He hears the words end in an ‘oomph’ and he struggles into a crouch, turning to the scuffle, fists brought up wildly, and he thinks distantly that he must look drunk, on his knees and throwing punches that have no chance of hitting, but he can feel his chest start to tighten, and he wants to get this over with as soon as possible so he can get home and get through the damned attack by himself.

It takes too long, but eventually the older kids get tired and leave spitting, the cocky-voiced kid lying on the ground beside him, grinning.

“Coulda handled ‘em m’self,” he pushes out, because he still has some dignity left.

The kid laughs.

“Of course you coulda, pal. Just wanted to help out a little. Make myself feel better.”

Steve’s eyes narrow, unsure if he was being mocked. Still, he could feel coughs starting to brew at the base of his throat, so he pushes himself up, catching himself on a stumble. He attempts a farewell, but he thinks if he opens his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to stop a gasp, which would lead to coughs racking through his body, his chest constricting around his lungs and he would end up on the floor, right in front of this kid, and he would never let that happen. Instead, he turns, telling himself to _just make it home, Rogers, you can do it._

“Hey, pal, you alright?”

“M’ fine,” he grits out, forcing his steps into a straight line.

“You sure don’t look fine to me,” the voice sounds like it’s right beside him now, but he presses on.

“Then you should get your eyes checked.”

The kid laughs beside him, and he might feel good about that later, but for now he just wants him to _go away._ He fights the urge to sigh when he feels an arm curl around his shoulders.

“Here, lean on me.”

He wants to protest, to push the kid away, to growl out that he _doesn’t need any help, thank you very much,_ but he knows he won’t be able to make it back any other way, and he knows he would just waste more energy than he has, trying to get the boy off his back, so he allows it.

Let it not be said that Steve Rogers doesn’t know how to pick his fights.

So he garbles out an address to the boy before he turns his attention to getting his breaths under control. He matches it with the kid’s breathing, hitched in its own right. Still, he doesn’t have much choice and starts waiting for the rise of shoulders his own arm is clamped around before he lets himself take another breath.

He doesn’t know how long it takes, how long it is before he’s hanging off the kid with the last of his strength, body jerking slightly in time with the kid’s increasingly frantic knocks on his door. All he knows is the overwhelming sense of relief he feels when he’s being pushed into his house, voices sounding indistinctly over him, and for some reason, all he can think of is the small word printed on the inside of his arm. 

'Pal'.

He doesn’t expect to see the kid again, so when he’s leaning against a tree, sketching with his book propped up on his knees, the only activity in the schoolyard he’s allowed to do, he’s surprised to hear a ‘Hey, pal’ and someone flopping down beside him.

He straightens and turns to the kid, frowning slightly.

“What are you doing here?”

The kid raises an eyebrow before grinning. He sticks his hand out instead of answering and says, “Name’s James Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky.”

Steve looks at the proffered hand, but doesn’t take it. The hand drops, but the smile doesn’t.

“Standard courtesy to give your name after someone’s introduced themselves, don’t ya think?” Bucky drawls.

Steve rolls his eyes and answers curtly.

“Steve.”

“Got a last name?”

“Rogers. What’s it to you?”

Bucky laughs, eyes scrunching up and lips stretched into a wide smile as he leans forward.

“You’re a punk, you know that?”

“Fine praise coming from a jerk.”

This time when the laugh comes, Steve is smiling.

If Bucky had left it at that, if Bucky had just written him off as the weird, standoffish kid, they might have had a chance. Bucky would have found a girl of his own and Steve... Steve would have gotten by somehow.

If that had happened, they might still have had a chance.

They might have never been truly happy, but they would have been content.

But the world doesn’t work that way. It pushes you into the life you’re supposed to lead. A life where you meet your soulmate, where you fall in love and get married and have babies and... be happy.

It’s because the world works that way, it’s because nobody knows if they really have a choice in this, that Steve is sitting on a ratty couch in an apartment in Brooklyn that he and Bucky share, many years later, realizing for the first time that the words inked into his arm had already been said. To him.

“Buck,” he says, watching as Bucky turns to him, patting down the creases of the army-issued uniform, “What does it say?”

“What does what say?”

“Your mark,” he says, suddenly desperate, because he’s sure, he’s _so sure_ it’s him, but he _needs to know,_ “What does it say?”

“Steve-“

And that answers his question, he thinks, so he stands and covers the space between them, hands reaching out.

“Steve, what-“ Bucky blurts out as he turns, trying to avoid the fingers tugging at his jacket.

“Let me see,” is the only explanation he gives as he pops open the buttons, pulls at the knot in the tie, struggles with the shirt underneath.

Bucky only stares at him, almost incredulous, mostly nervous.

The jacket falls to the floor. Followed by the tie. Joined shortly by the shirt. When Bucky stands before him, clad only in his undershirt and pants, Steve looks up at him and swallows before pushing him slightly, Bucky turning easily to the side, dazed, docile.

Steve places a hand on Bucky’s left upper arm, the spot he knew Bucky’s words to be. He takes a breath and slides his hand down, eyes instantly caught by the black script resting in Bucky’s skin.

‘Could’ve handled them myself’

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He feels a slight tremble under his hand and he grips Bucky’s arm, turning Bucky back to face him.

Bucky’s eyes are wild, almost desperate as his own hands come up to clutch at Steve’s shoulders.

“Yours-?”

Steve draws back to fold up his sleeve, offering his arm to Bucky, who took it in his hands gently, leaning to make out the small words in his arm.

‘Of course you could’ve, pal’

Bucky looks up at Steve, lips parted slightly, eyes widened in wonder.

“Why didn’t you say anything, Buck?” Steve insists, rolling the sleeve back over his arm.

Bucky steps back, running a hand through carefully styled hair.

“I suspected- but you never said anything and-“ he stops, glancing away.

“And what, Bucky?” Steve asks, almost gentle.

Bucky swallows.

“I just didn’t want to risk it, Steve.”

Steve nods, and they stand in silence, suddenly unsure.

“Do you,” he clears the thickness making a home in his throat, “Do you, uh-“

“You know I do.”

Steve nods and it’s Bucky’s turn to glance at him nervously.

“You?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.”

Another painfully awkward silence passes over them before Bucky breaks it with laughter, soft and tentative. Steve’s head dips down and he glances up at Bucky, a small smile tugging at his lips.

It's not the first time Steve feels like kissing the smile off Bucky’s face, but it’s the first time he realizes he _can._

So he steps closer to Bucky, fingers twitching slightly as he traces the curve of Bucky’s jaw, the shape of his lips. The lines he had committed to memory, the lines he had taken for himself, taken and trapped between the pages of his sketchbook.

Trapped them because that was the only way he could keep parts of Bucky for himself.

He feels Bucky’s soft, hot breaths on his thumb, takes in Bucky’s wide, expectant eyes, and he smiles.

Stretching up, he clasps a hand on the back of Bucky’s neck and pulls him down into a soft, sweet kiss.

The press of lips against his isn’t what takes the breath out of him. It’s the flutter of Bucky’s eyelashes against his skin, it’s the hands that had shot out to grab at his shoulders, it’s the soft sound Bucky makes when Steve tightens his grip on him.

It’s that Bucky is _his_ now.

The kiss is over before they part, before they are willing to break the ties that seem to bind them together. But eventually, they do. Eventually, Bucky straightens with a grin and Steve fights the urge to pull him back down, stepping away instead.

Bucky keeps staring at Steve, smile unfaltering and Steve raises an eyebrow in response.

“What?”

“Nothin’,” Bucky shrugs, “just been wantin’ to do that for awhile.”

Steve scoffs, “You didn’t do anything, Buck.”

“Oh? Guess I’d better fix that, then.”

“If you think you can handle it.”

Bucky laughingly pulls him into another kiss, fingers splayed on Steve’s back, other hand cradling Steve’s cheek and Steve presses back, because it’s too much, he feels like he’s being taken over and he can’t-

He takes control of the kiss and Bucky lets him, melts into him easily while still keeping most of his weight off Steve. Steve feels a flash of anger at the consideration and pushes Bucky, blindly hoping they would end up on the couch.

Of course, nothing of that sort happens. Instead, Bucky staggers backwards, arms flailing as he struggles to regain his balance. Efforts in vain, he ends up on the floor, Steve sprawled on top of him.

“Shit, Steve, you okay?”

Steve fights off the embarrassment and decides to work with what he has, pressing open-mouthed kisses to Bucky’s lips.

Bucky’s arms wrap around Steve again and he responds with equal fervour.

“Steve,” he gasps out in between kisses, “Stevie, we’re going to be late.”

Steve groans, fingers curling in Bucky’s hair, tugging.

“Can’t we just stay home?”

Bucky chuckles, drawing back to gently tap his forehead against Steve’s.

“That ain’t no way to treat ladies, Steve. Have I thought you nothing?”

Steve frowns, sullenly replying, “Why’d you have to go and invite them anyway?”

Bucky’s smile falters and he lets his head fall to the ground as he casts his gaze to the side.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says softly, “And it woulda killed me to get a letter from you tellin’ me about some girl you met, how she’d said the words on your arm, how you’d said the words on hers and-“

Steve thinks he understands. He thinks he understands so he interrupts Bucky with another kiss.

“Looks like that’s one thing you won’t have to worry about, Buck.”

Bucky smiles in that soft, slow way of his that makes Steve wish he could draw moving pictures.

“Yeah.”

They stay that way for a few moments, moments they wish they wouldn’t have to end, before Steve pushes himself up and grips Bucky’s hand, pulling as much of his weight as Bucky allows to get him up. They part with a smile and Steve begins straightening out his shirt as Bucky collects his discarded uniform from the floor.

“I tell ya, pal, if you got ‘em crumpled,” Bucky sends Steve a meaningful gaze, “I’ll end you.”

Steve rolls his eyes and works on retying his own tie.

They do go. They go ‘to the future’ as Bucky so aptly puts it. They go and Steve tries, but he can’t fight the temptation of the approved sign up sheets he can so clearly see in his mind, if only he had _one more chance_ but Bucky notices, of course Bucky notices and the few precious hours they would have had together are sacrificed because Steve doesn’t know when to let things go.

So they’d parted with a hug, too little, too inadequate an expression when they should have curled up beside each other, wrapped each other up, kept each other safe, for as long as they could be _sure_ nothing would happen to either of them.

Still, Steve steels himself, lets Bucky leave with the girls before he turns away and gets caught up in a whirlwind of events that leave him reeling long after they’re over.

When he’s stumbling out of the metal container, panting, new height disorienting, the first thing he looks at is the black script on his arm.

He blinks, fights the urge to rub at his eyes when he sees the words stretched, faded.

 _No,_ he wants to say, _why?_

But there’s a gunshot and Dr Erksine is dying and he’s running, running, running and there’s a HYDRA agent foaming at the mouth on the ground and he’s _so big now._  

So he forgets all about it.

And he shouldn't be doing this. He was meant to be on the front lines - he was meant to be with Bucky. He shouldn't be forced to fake-punch hundreds of Hitlers, forced to use his new bulk to lift vehicles into the air to the chorus.

He’s never hated a song more in his entire life.

As he pulls the mask onto his face, as he’s repeating the words he’s committed to memory, as he awkwardly passes a baby back into their waiting mother’s hands, he is just pathetically grateful that Bucky can’t see him this way.

Until he’s brought to an army camp and he’s forced offstage, and Peggy is telling him about the 107th-

_“107 th, Sergeant James Barnes.”_

“The 107th?”

Now he has a purpose, a goal pushing him, pulling him and he runs, needs to know about-

“Sergent James Barnes. B-A-R-“

The Colonel says the name sounds familiar but it can’t be true, Bucky can’t be dead, he would have _felt it_.

_Bucky can’t have died- no Bucky wouldn’t go anywhere without Steve, till’ the end of the line, isn’t that what you said, Buck?_

So he’s sitting in a plane a few hours later, distractedly saying, “So are you two…? Do you…? Fondue?” as he eyes the cloth of his jacket, the spot where he knows the words sit in his skin, faded.

Peggy doesn’t grace that with a response and he’s running the plan through his head- simple, get in, get Bucky and the POWs, get out. He jumps, letting himself revel in the fact that _he can do these things now_ for only a second before he lands and knocks out a man for the first time.

He’s racing through the base, and it feels _so damned good_ until he finds the POWs and Bucky _isn’t there._

No, no there’s one more place, they _said_ , - but he _still hasn’t found Bucky_ and he’s getting desperate and he can’t let himself panic, can’t lose his senses, so he breathes, remembers times when his hand gripped at Bucky’s chest, forcing his breaths to match the rise and fall he feels.

He searches, turns corners, scanning empty rooms, panic almost rising in his throat _no matter how he tries-_

A sudden movement captures his attention and it’s a man- short, carrying a briefcase, clutching at a hat and he nearly follows, but whispers sound from the room the man had vacated and he turns abruptly, because it sounds _so familiar_ and _yes, yes it’s Bucky._

Bucky as Steve had never seen him before. Beaten, bruised, completely out of it. But it’s Bucky and he’s alive.

“Steve,” the word sounds small and breathless in the room, and Steve hauls Bucky up, hand immediately drawn up to cup Bucky’s cheek.

But it’s different.

It doesn’t look right on Bucky’s skin,  _too big, too wrong._

So he snatches it away, swallowing against the thickness in his throat.

“I thought you were dead.”

Bucky’s eyes lock on Steve’s chest and his eyebrows furrow slightly in confusion as his gaze trails up, lips parted in surprise.

“I thought you were smaller.”

And they escape. It’s a close call; Steve wouldn’t have made it – wouldn't have attempted the jump, but Bucky was gripping at the railing, staring desperately at him, voice hiding a tremble as he pushed out, “No! Not without you!”, and Steve knew he had to try.

Later, as he’s surrounded by cheering soldiers, he lets himself feel proud, because _he did it_ and if he had looked back at Bucky then, just let himself steal a glance, he might have noticed Bucky’s smile drop off his face, he might have noticed his lips curling into a small frown, might have noticed the sudden painful, deep sadness shining in Bucky’s eyes.

But he hadn’t looked back, and that should have been the first sign that something had changed.


End file.
